Billionaires

A new study released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the Economic Progress Institute finds that the lowest-income Rhode Islanders pay 53 percent more in taxes as a percent of their income compared to the state’s wealthiest residents.
The study, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, evaluates all major state and local taxes, including personal and corporate income taxes, property taxes, sales and other excise taxes. While the top one percent of Rhode Islanders (earning over $467,700 a year) pay 7.9 percent of their income in total taxes, the lowest income Rhode Islanders, those earning less than $21,700 a year, pay over 12 percent of their income in taxes.